[dsizzle]

More like he says the affirmations result in stock market premonitions. For example, he said after his "I will get rich in the stock market" manifestation he woke up in the middle of the night thinking "buy Chrysler" before it went on a rally.

[teddyh]

> he says the affirmations result in stock market premonitions

Not even that. He says that affirmations resulted in him having a premonition. He does not generalize or predict that this will happen for other people, or even himself in the future.

[sanderjd]

This seems very pedantic. The original comment's criticism remains valid with this description of what he says.

[teddyh]

The original comment said “influence” the stock market. Having a premonition is the opposite of influencing.

[saalweachter]

Are you sure he didn't write "I totally didn't inside trade on the basis of information leaked by an employee who thought he was just telling me a funny anecdote to use in my comic, I totally just manifested a premonition in a dream."?

[lupusreal]

Email from an employee is also a plausible mechanism for how that idea might have come to him in a dream. Information not fully processed and turned over when awake can turn into clear ideas in dreams. By committing himself to get rich in the stock market when awake, he primes himself to think about related information when he sleeps. It could be that he never even consciously connected the two and believed it to be a premonition.

Or it could be as you say. No way for us to know.

[XenophileJKO]

I mean if the affirmations make your brain, both conscious and unconscious, fixate on thinking about market conditions and purchasing opportunities, this passes my smell test.

A premonition is a fancy name for an unconscious prediction.

Now does are the predictions "good", that is a completely different story. Probably depends on the information going in.

[robocat]

> A premonition is a fancy name for an unconscious prediction

The problem with woo is you can always add more woo (bonus points if it has sciencey glitter). Goes from woowoo to woowoowoo.

Woo has no logical consistency and has nothing predictably predictive.

Ask manifestation believers why they are not successful or rich or whatever? You'll hear some fabulous reasons.

My neighbour paid money (I presume thousands) to do courses on learning how to unblock herself. The stated reason for the failure to manifest was due to blocks. Her explanation of the material was outrageous. I have yet to see the positive effect on her.

I don't manifest, yet I've got things others would like to manifest. Not sure there that fits in with the woo.

[aaronbaugher]

I knew a bunch of people who were really into the "Law of Attraction" woowoo manifestation stuff back in the mid-2000s. That was a good time for it, especially for suburban middle-class American folks like these, for whom life was generally pretty great. When your life is going great, believing that you manifested it just shows how awesome you are and how much the Universe likes you.

But after some time goes by and you get pinched in the mortgage crash, or your wife hits you with a divorce, or you get cancer, if you really believe you manifest everything into your life, then you have to believe you manifested the bad stuff too. So why did you do that to yourself? It's a rough belief system then.

[neom]

To my mind, manifesting is just deciding, manifesting daily is focusing daily. I think the woo starts to come in when people either deliberately misconstrue or genuinely are not very intelligent and just followed a plan well. A couple comments above was talking about someone who woke up in the night and bought Chrysler, made me chuckle because I once woke up in the night remembering I'd forgotten to buy more $TWLO. I could tell this story as: I wanted to get rich playing the stock market, so I decided to write down I was going to do the stock market, every day I wrote down and research the stock market "manifesting" it more and more, once day I wrote into my manifest pad "I'm going to win the stock market!" for the 50th day in a row. That night I went to bed, and in the middle of the night I woke up and thought "I should buy more $TWLO!" - the next day I did, and a week later it rallied netting me $360,000.

Truly a master of manifesting my own reality, I suppose? heh. But seriously though, in think in the vain of the above, if "manifestation" is what someone needs to do as their trello or jira for themselves, more power to them.